


marked

by lacrimalis



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Banter, Blood and Wine (The Witcher 3 DLC), Character Study, Gaunter O'Dimm Arrives To Fuck With Blood And Wine, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Normal Gaunter O'Dimm Things, Post-The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 09:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25348765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacrimalis/pseuds/lacrimalis
Summary: Geralt may have defeated the Man of Glass, but Gaunter O'Dimm isn't done with him just yet.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Gaunter O'Dimm & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Comments: 10
Kudos: 77





	marked

**Author's Note:**

> came across 6k words of gaunter o'dimm content in my old documents and could not BELIEVE i didnt publish it. so here it is now! we love a crossroads demon :)

O'Dimm's mark doesn't go away.

Geralt concedes to insecurity by asking Yen, Triss and Ciri if it's noticeable. He wonders who he thinks he’s kidding. Of _course_ it's noticeable. He might as well have ‘Property of Gaunter O'Dimm’ carved into the side of his face. The man's initials aren't a far cry from it. Like the sort of engraving a noble might order for his sword.

At least Ciri surprises a laugh out of him when she tells him to unbutton his shirt to distract people from it. She really _is_ his daughter, he thinks fondly.

“Not a fan of leaving my chest exposed,” he responds to the glib suggestion, fighting back a smile. He raps his knuckles on the plate he’s wearing. “Kinda what the armor is for.”

Ciri taps her chin in mock thoughtfulness. “What about Zerrikanian armor? Have you seen it?”

Geralt blows out a breath when his most recent encounter with the Zerrikanians comes to mind. “More than I'd care to, recently.”

“They do some _very_ interesting things with exposed shoulders,” Ciri says, laughter in every note of her voice. “You should try it. You've certainly nothing to hide.”

Geralt snorts, and doesn't point out that that still leaves the problem of exposing his bare skin to danger. “I'll keep that in mind.”

What he _does_ end up doing is wearing a hood. He doesn't _like_ it - it makes him feel like some kind of highwayman, skulking about looking for nobles to accost on the road. The fabric tugs his hair out of its loose ponytail, and he can't keep it out of his face. That and the hood itself obscure his vision to a dangerous degree.

But he hates that damned mark, can't stand the curious looks it gets. It's a reminder of the way O'Dimm used him like a tool for his own ends, staked his claim on Geralt as executor of his will.

How even in defeat, Geralt gets the sense that Gaunter O’Dimm is dogging his steps everywhere he goes.

The most unnerving thing is that he can _feel_ people looking at it. It comes with a sting when someone looks at him with ill intent, a tingle when it's something benign like sympathy, or disgust. And it itches when someone is trying to look at him without being noticed.

It takes Geralt a while to separate the sensations out, and when he realizes what the mark is doing he almost has to laugh. It's like it’s capturing the intentions of the people who look at it, and reflecting them _back_ into his skin. Like the mirrors inside a telescope.

Useful as it might prove as a barometer for others’ intentions, his encounter with O'Dimm is too recent for Geralt to derive anything but annoyance from it.

So he wears his hood, and that mitigates the worst of it. Eventually he gets used to it, and his hearing makes up for the handicap he takes in peripheral vision.

Ironically, people treat him with _less_ suspicion after he starts wearing a hood. He's no longer recognizable on sight as the Butcher of Blaviken, and the hood's shadows even conceal his distinctive cat eyes. Tuck his medallion away, and he's just another anonymous traveler looking for a bit of discretion - not that most people even recognize it, there being so few witchers left in the world.

— 

They face the Wild Hunt on the shores of Skellige, and Ciri vanquishes the White Frost once and for all. Emhyr doesn't take the lie about Ciri's death well, but the hood helps with that too, and Geralt starts to grow accustomed to the additional barrier it provides against the kind of scrutiny of people like Emhyr.

On his way to meet Ciri in White Orchard, Geralt encounters the dwarves he'd had the misfortune of meeting on the Isle of Mists. He strongly considers knocking their heads together without giving them a chance to speak.

Geralt crosses his arms, unmoved by their sheepish expressions. “You stole my boat.”

“Aye,” one of them acknowledges nervously, “but ye made it out alright, didn't ye?”

“And we were gonna come back for ye if ye hadn't — honest!”

“Really,” Geralt says. It's not a question. “You were gonna bring it back to the magic, uncharted island. Tell me, I'm curious — how did you think you were going to manage that?”

Before he can give the dwarves as hard a time as he thinks they deserve, Geralt is interrupted by a Nilfgaardian patrol. As it is, he's feeling _just_ uncharitable enough toward Emhyr to throw them off the dwarves’ trail, instead of ratting them out like he means to.

His reward for keeping the confidence of the dwarven thieves is an interesting piece of information. “Stealing from the Church of the Eternal Flame?” he asks them archly when the patrol has passed and the dwarves are stumbling through their sycophantic thanks. “Not that they don't deserve it, but do you all have some kind of death wish? Swindling witchers, robbing from fanatical clergy...” Geralt tsks.

“Risky, to be sure, but ye can't say it didn't pay off in both cases,” one of them says.

Another elbows the one that just spoke, hastening to add, “‘Course, I _told_ 'em you were a good sort back then, Master Witcher, and that we oughtn't have stolen yer boat.”

“Uh-huh. Curious to know who'd be willing to buy it from you. Can't say an item like that has much resale value.”

Sleepy snorts awake and asks blearily, “The boat?”

Another dwarf elbows him. “The chalice, ye nincompoop!”

Another chimes in, “Well, we found a buyer, so we needn't worry ‘bout it no more. Strange man, but he paid good coin. Now, what was it...? Mr. Mirrory, I think he called himself.”

Geralt's blood rushes in his ears, and he doesn't hear what the dwarves say next. He turns on his heel and walks away — to the bewilderment of the dwarves, who shrug and thank their good fortune, before they begin to break down their camp to move out of range of the patrols.

— 

The White Orchard tavern isn't far. His excitement at the prospect of bringing Ciri her new sword hasn't waned, but he can't help setting it aside for a moment as he lingers by the stables with Roach. From his vantage point, he can just see through the window to a table — the same one from which Gaunter O’Dimm had beckoned him over, all those months ago.

O’Dimm had ordered a Nilfgaardian lemon schnapps — two of them. Geralt doesn’t soon forget the details when someone buys him a drink.

It happens so rarely, after all.

“We men of the road must stick together,” O’Dimm had said. ‘ _Men of the road’, he says — him being some kind of crossroads demon, of course,_ Geralt thinks with a sneer.

No one's sitting there now, but that doesn't mean much to the Man of Glass, who can stop time and vanish right before your eyes.

 _I banished him,_ Geralt has to remind himself. _He won't be back for a while yet._

In truth, Geralt has no idea how long he's stalled Gaunter O'Dimm. Shakeslock hadn't managed to elaborate on that detail before he stumbled outside his protective circle and broke his neck on a low bookshelf. Grimly, Geralt had extinguished the candles around the circle after that, not wanting to turn the place into a funeral pyre through inaction.

He'd regretted it the moment the last candle snuffed out, and a hissing gust had rushed from the circle's confines. Geralt doesn't know what he released, but it couldn't have been anything good. He just hopes whatever it was remains grateful enough not to come after him any time soon.

Geralt shakes his head to clear it. He didn't come here to navel gaze about the portents of his first meeting with Gaunter O'Dimm. He came here for Ciri.

Geralt pulls Ciri's new blade from Roach's saddle bag and walks into the tavern.

— 

His months traveling with Ciri are the happiest of Geralt's life. They make up for lost time, sharing meals and moments they never could when the threat of the Wild Hunt still loomed.

Ciri’s not a little girl any more, and Geralt is learning to be okay with that. They drink and carouse, get into trouble and out of danger, together — always together. Geralt even surprises himself, when he only raises an eyebrow the first time Ciri pulls him aside to say she won't be back at their lodgings that evening — as the beautiful herbalist they'd visited for supplies stands at the door of her hut, favoring Ciri with a sultry smile.

Ciri returns the favor a week later when Geralt does a double-take at a fisherwoman by the docks of Novigrad. They're in town to see Eibhear with no outstanding contracts, so Ciri smiles knowingly and nudges him toward the fisherwoman. When Geralt blinks at her in astonishment, Ciri simply tells him she'll be at the Chameleon if he wants to meet up later, and that's that.

Part of him is frustrated it took him this long to accept that Ciri is an adult. But now that he has, it's clear their bond is the stronger for it, opening new avenues of conversation and leylines of trust in every interaction.

He's not afraid to admit his mistakes to her any more, either, and one evening he divulges the story of his heist at the Borsodi auction house. As he tells it, he needs something in the vault to lift a curse from a man with a heart of stone, and he falls in with a band of professional thieves to do it. He doesn’t mention O’Dimm’s involvement.

(Geralt chides himself for trying to protect Ciri by withholding information. He _will_ tell her the whole story, eventually. But if he reveals to her the source of the mark that's made him hide his face from the world, he isn't sure she won't use her powers to confront O'Dimm wherever he's been banished to and demand restitution.)

Sitting together in front of the campfire, Ciri laughs in delighted outrage at his hypocrisy.

“And you turned your nose up at _me_ for wanting to steal a few horses!”

“I mean,” Geralt says, his lip twitching around his bottle of mandrake cordial, “I _did_ help you steal the horses, in the end.”

“Yes, and you bitched the whole time!”

Geralt grins. “We're wolves _,_ aren't we? It's in our nature to bitch and howl.”

Ciri dissolves into peals of laughter beside him, jostling him and making both of them spill their drinks.

Her laughter is contagious, and Geralt can't keep a straight face as he says, “You're such a fucking lush, Ciri. What will the pearl-clutching nobles think when we stumble into town tomorrow, smelling like the stains on the tavern floor?”

“That we had more fun last night than they did, and they're jealous?” Ciri says with a snort.

Geralt cherishes these moments.

Which, of course, means they can't last forever.

— 

Geralt leans against the wall of their room at the Chameleon, arms crossed over his chest as he scowls down at the open letter from the Emperor of Nilfgaard sitting on the desk. Ciri mirrors his body language exactly, standing beside the desk and looking even more displeased than he does.

“Skellige is nice this time of year,” Geralt says unsubtly.

Ciri looks momentarily wistful at the suggestion before shaking her head. “Skellige and Nilfgaard have a tenuous peace right now. Seeking asylum there would just make things difficult for Cerys.”

Geralt nods, understanding. It was a long shot anyway. “Want me to go with you?”

Ciri gives him a wry smirk. “No. Emhyr probably has a gallows set up in his office, just in case you have the temerity to show your face.”

She's probably right.

Ciri sighs as she picks up the letter to read again, lines cropping up around her eyes. “I suppose it _was_ too much to hope that he'd fail to notice us taking jobs all over Velen. And we _have_ been making frequent stops here in Novigrad...”

To Geralt’s mind, they’d been as cautious as they could. They'd avoided Nilfgaardian patrols whenever they caught wind of them, kept their hoods up as much as they could when in public. Emhyr must have been tipped off by his network of informants.

No matter how cautious they were, Emhyr would have learned of their travels eventually. It had always only been a matter of time.

“I'll find some jobs to keep myself out of the region,” Geralt finally says.

Ciri gives him a sympathetic look. “That's probably for the best.”

A silence settles around them as they both privately wonder what the fuck they're going to do.

Suddenly, Ciri snorts. “Bet I'll give him a scare if I teleport right into his office,” she says wickedly.

Geralt grins. “Let me know if he falls out of his chair in shock.”

Ciri laughs a watery laugh, and Geralt closes the distance to embrace her. When they separate, Ciri tucks a loose strand of hair behind Geralt's ear. “Tell Dandelion where you're going?”

Geralt kisses the crown of her head, wondering if there’ll be a real crown sitting there the next time he sees her. “Of course.”

Ciri disappears in a flash of blue, taking with her the golden months of Geralt's life.

— 

Dandelion looks vaguely nauseous when Geralt tells him he's going to Toussaint. Geralt reminds the bard that _his_ exploits are not Geralt's own, and he doubts the Duchess harbors any ill will toward Geralt for Dandelion’s mistakes. She had, after all, requested Geralt’s presence specifically.

“Just be _careful_ , Geralt,” Dandelion cautions. “Toussaint has a way of hypnotizing a man. Before you know it, you're three months into a bender and banging on the door of the brothel that's kicked you out for being penniless.”

“Already penniless,” Geralt says, though that's not entirely true. He's made a killing lately selling the gear he gets off bandits to smithies. Granted, blades that cheap will probably just be sold back to new bandits, and it does feel a bit dishonest, selling the same blade twice — but hell, it's a living. “Doubt I'll have any problems of that nature.”

— 

The long ride with Palmerin de Launfal and Milton de Peyrac-Peyran does Geralt good. They have coin enough to stay at the higher end inns and then some, and the tension built up from his time on the road slowly ebbs away with hot baths, freshly laundered sheets, and hearty meals.

Geralt listens with an indulgent smile as they theatrically recount the travails and triumphs they've experienced since last they saw him. When he recounts his most recent battle with the Wild Hunt and Ciri's victory over the White Frost, the two men's eyes look on the verge of popping out of their heads.

“This is an astounding tale, White Wolf!” Milton says in awe. “Why have I not yet heard ballads of the bravery and valor you and your comrades displayed?”

Geralt's lip quirks. “It's a recent development.”

“No time like the present!” says Palmerin. “We shall have the ducal musicians informed as soon as we arrive!”

Geralt chuckles. “I'll have to pen a letter to Dandelion, tell him he's got competition.”

When they arrive, Geralt is gratified to find that Toussaint is as radiant as ever. Its pastoral beauty is a balm on Geralt's troubled soul.

He takes a deep breath. Smells warm sunlit grass, flowers and fruits in bloom, and fresh, mineral-rich water from a nearby river.

Then he gets to work.

—

Despite the grim occasion, Geralt can't contain his joy at finally being reunited with Regis. A decade-long grief that had finally settled, heavy beneath his ribcage among the rest of his regrets, unfurls and slips away, leaving him a little lighter than before.

In the way that sense memories can unlock a forgotten chest of recollections, it doesn't fully hit him until he's sitting with Regis in the Mère-Lachaiselongue cemetery, and the first drop of Regis's mandrake hooch touches his tongue.

Geralt chased the scent of lilac and gooseberries for so long, only to have his passion for Yen swept away with a wish. It startles him, to be reminded of a taste that he had yearned for just as strongly without even realizing it.

“Geralt, are you all right?” Regis asks when Geralt falls silent to stare at the bottle.

“Yeah,” Geralt says roughly, looking again at his friend and drinking in the sight of him. There's still an edge of grief in _seeing_ Regis, his heart still catching up to the knowledge that Regis is alive _._ “Missed this.”

A gentle smile crinkles at the corners of Regis's eyes. “As have I, my friend,” he says with warmth.

Unbidden, the image of a winding road comes to Geralt's mind. Its beginning is too distant to see, its destination shrouded in mist. He has parted ways with Ciri at a crossroads, only to meet a familiar pair of knights errant along the way. One is lost, and it grieves him — but at another crossroads he hadn't expected, he finds Regis. All manner of miserable weather has visited Geralt on this path, and the memories of rain and fog are still with him - but today, for a moment, it is favored with cloudless skies and fair winds.

The Beast of Beauclair — Dettlaff, Regis calls him — has taken one friend from Geralt, and unwittingly restored another. Geralt can't help thinking of Olgierd's deal with O'Dimm, and how he traded his brother's life to be with his wife. Not all such trades are wished for, Geralt reflects, nor do they all pass through O'Dimm's waiting hand. Sometimes difficult choices are difficult circumstances, and no one gets a choice in the outcome.

At least O'Dimm gives people a choice at all, Geralt thinks — though he can't imagine wanting that choice for himself.

The mark Gaunter O'Dimm left him tingles, and he catches Regis looking at it.

“I apologize for staring,” Regis quickly says. “I failed to notice it when you were wearing that hood and, well, you’re familiar with my academic curiosity... Forgive me for saying so, Geralt, but it's _quite_ astonishing.”

Geralt realizes he'd been so at ease with Regis that he'd pulled down his hood without a second thought. “Yeah,” Geralt agrees. In all honesty, he’d almost forgotten it was there. “Would you believe I can feel when people look at it?”

Regis's eyes widen, then narrow, considering. A pleasant tingle traces up and down the lines of the mark, as if Regis is touching it with clinical interest from where he sits across from Geralt. “I believe it,” Regis says quietly. “In fact, I expect you could tell me something far more outlandish than that, and were that mark the culprit, I would be hard pressed to find reason to doubt you.”

Geralt laughs under his breath. He'd kept it from Ciri, but when they'd still been traveling together it had been too recent. Even now, Geralt still sometimes jumped at shadows, waiting for the Man of Glass to come for his dues.

Geralt finds he _wants_ to tell someone, and Regis is here now, asking. More to the point, Geralt feels he can trust him with the information. “I'll tell you,” he eventually decides, “if you promise to keep that academic curiosity in check. You can ask questions, but no follow-up research.”

Regis looks dissatisfied, pursing his lips as he weighs the pay-off of immediate answers against Geralt’s ultimatum.

“You'll understand when I get into it,” Geralt assures him. “As it happens, the story's got another curious academic in it. Something of a cautionary tale.”

Regis says he needs to think about it, but they haven't even finished off their next bottle of mandrake hooch when he doubles back to the subject and begs Geralt to tell him.

So Geralt tells him.

As for the Dettlaff predicament, Geralt can't forgive the vampire for slaying his friend — not until he knows more about the extenuating circumstances that Regis insists _must_ be at play. But Regis is the one who's with Geralt _now_. Then and there Gerlat decides that no matter how this shakes out, he won’t jeopardize the friend he's regained in the memory of a friend that's gone for good.

Maybe that's a little cold-hearted of him, he thinks, but he's trying to be practical.

Geralt has to pause in his recounting when he wonders what Gaunter O'Dimm would say to that.

—

A growing sense of unease settles over Geralt as he digs deeper into the spotted wight's curse. The riddle scrawled all over the property doesn't clue him in immediately — anyone can cast a curse, given enough depth of feeling and ambient magical energy, and Toussaint seems as good a fit as any: passionate citizenry, plus a sprawling underground network of cursed elven ruins?

Yeah, that'd do the trick.

The _spoons_ set something niggling at the back of his brain, like an itch between his shoulder blades he can't quite reach.

But the axe doesn't really land until he's reading the notes and letters strewn about the house. _The beggar snaps a spoon in half,_ one note reads, and Geralt can _hear_ the wooden snap, the distant sound of rushing water outside a Zerrikanian ship — but he's so _focused_ on keeping quiet to avoid the wight's detection, so preoccupied with the _purpose_ behind the investigation, that it _still_ doesn't fall into place until he reads:

_a merchant of mirrors,_

And _then_ it clicks, with the resounding finality of the latch of a prison cell.

The note falls out of Geralt's slack grip, where it flutters innocently to the filthy hardwood floor. The mark on his face stings, and he can't be sure if it's responding to the memory of receiving it — or to O'Dimm's magic, which he now knows must be radiating from every fiber of the house.

Geralt knows O'Dimm explicitly renounced ‘spells’, so ‘magic’ might not be the right word for it. _Presence_ , maybe — or _influence._ Either way, Geralt swears he can feel it, an echo of the disorienting shockwave that had gone out when O'Dimm banished Vlodimir.

“O'Dimm?” he whispers, dreading a response.

None is forthcoming, and Geralt exhales the breath he realizes he's been holding.

Of course it's O'Dimm, Geralt thinks with resignation. The mirror merchant persona is a dead giveaway, as is the spoon fixation — and the riddle, of course — but it’s strange. O’Dimm could probably stop time and _steal_ food if he really wanted it. Geralt has a strong suspicion that the man doesn’t even need to eat, so his motive here makes even less sense. Why curse Lady Trastamara?

Probably it was a test, the sort of thing gods in ancient pantheons did to make sure people were following social conventions. But there’s something else that sticks in Geralt’s head — like he already has another piece of the puzzle, but he can’t find where it fits.

Then Geralt realizes.

O'Dimm wanted to be _invited_ to the party _,_ and the host had the gall to _turn him away._

When Vlodimir’s ghost possessed Geralt to attend a wedding reception, Geralt saw everything, even if he had no control over his body. And he'd seen O'Dimm, chatting up a pair of old birds, seeming just to enjoy the opportunity to talk about gingerbread, of all things, and make cryptic allusions to his power over the flow of time.

O'Dimm even donned one of the flower crowns on offer for the occasion, when half the men present had manfully chosen to forego such accessories.

Gaunter O'Dimm didn't just want to attend. He wanted to mingle, to _participate._

Geralt wonders if Gaunter truly thought Lady Trastamara deserving of her cruel fate, or if he was just offended at not being welcomed to the festivities. It isn't like he couldn't have just shown up inside and behaved as if he'd been there all along, after people had indulged long enough in drink.

The revelation that Gaunter O’Dimm likes going to parties, wants to be _invited_ to them, is something Geralt doesn’t really know what to do with.

Well.

If O’Dimm ever returns to take umbrage with Geralt for interfering in his contract with Olgierd, maybe all Geralt has to do to smooth things over is invite the Man of Glass to a ball. Gods know Toussaint has them often enough.

He forces a quiet laugh at the thought to try and quell his misgivings, before the house’s groaning foundations remind him of the task at hand.

Right. Spotted wight saliva. Resonance. Finding Dettlaff.

Geralt ventures deeper into the spotted wight's lair, his mind turning over the riddle with renewed effort now that he knows it's the handiwork of Gaunter O'Dimm.

—

In the re-telling Geralt relates to Barnabas-Basil, he’s careful to omit any details that might allude to O'Dimm's involvement. He's heard enough people rue the day they learned the name, and he doesn't want to endanger his staff by being careless.

Regis was a different matter. Regis can handle himself, knows how to act with caution — but the people that work for Geralt aren't witchers or higher vampires.

Gaunter O'Dimm would eat them for _breakfast_ , given half a chance.

Geralt resigns himself to the fact that his efforts probably won't make much difference. Between Geralt and Marlene, it's unlikely _any_ precautions will prevent O'Dimm from taking notice of Corvo Bianco now.

—

Geralt doesn't want to delay bringing the wight saliva to Regis, so he leaves Marlene's recuperation in B.B.'s capable hands. He pulls up his hood and steps out the door, and when Roach isn't where he left her, he looks around to see where she wandered off to.

“Ah, Geralt!”

The voice is jovial, warm. Geralt is ashamed of the way he freezes up, his whole body seizing like an arrow has struck him.

Slowly, Geralt turns.

Gaunter O'Dimm sits languidly on top of the portico above the door to Geralt's house, in profile to the witcher. One leg dangles over the edge of the wooden ledge, swinging pendulum-like with measured, projected ease. In his hand is a ripe apple, which so closely resembles the ones in the fruit bowl B.B. set out for Marlene that Geralt would _swear_ that's where he got it from.

“Gaunter O'Dimm,” Geralt greets numbly around the dryness in his mouth. “What are you doing here?”

“I should be asking _you_ that question. You're the one who called me here, after all, thinking of me so tirelessly.” The Man of Glass grins down at Geralt. “I do so try to blend into the crowd, but it seems I've left an impression.”

Geralt curses. Maybe with some consideration, he'd have realized that even his thoughts were not safe from Gaunter O'Dimm's gaze. Shakeslock had avoided sleep to try and escape him, and Geralt had unconsciously been doing the same, favoring meditation over true rest whenever he could.

His journey to Toussaint had been an exception, but he doesn't recall having any strange dreams.

Geralt scowls, tapping the mark on his face. “Yeah, a pretty _deep_ impression. You're a hard man to forget.”

“And it looks _quite_ dashing on you! Shame to hide it beneath that hood.” O’Dimm taps the left side of his face with a finger, mimicking Geralt. “That symbol marks you as my associate, if you recall. And what's a simple business call between associates?”

Geralt can't quite wrap his tongue around the words to point out that O'Dimm's business calls usually end with someone dead. “Didn’t exactly part on the best of terms,” he says instead, probing, trying to gauge O'Dimm's actual feelings on the matter.

O'Dimm tilts his head toward Geralt, smiling. “Well, that's business sometimes, isn't it? Not everyone can walk away satisfied, and perhaps a few harsh words are exchanged...” He tosses the apple and catches it. “But in the end, the market waits for no one, and men of business must set aside their differences to shake hands once again and make a tidy profit.”

“Thought we were men of the road, not men of business” Geralt says.

“A man is many things, Geralt,” O'Dimm explains airily. “Witcher, lover, father, _monster_ —”

“You've made your point.”

“—and _vintner,_ now! My, how you've risen above your station! Thinking of retirement already, Geralt?”

Geralt bites the inside of his cheek. “Thinking about it,” he says, in the vain hope that O'Dimm has little use for a retired witcher.

O'Dimm hums. “Then set those thoughts aside. You've many years ahead of you yet. And given how handily you lifted that curse tonight, I'd say you're _far_ from retirement.”

Geralt mulls this over. In his own way, O'Dimm has just told him he doesn't intend to kill him. He tries not to feel relieved by such paltry comforts.

O'Dimm has had plenty of experience devising fates worse than death, after all.

“Piss you off that I freed someone else from a curse you gave them?” Geralt challenges, pushing his luck.

O'Dimm raises an amused eyebrow. “Brazen, aren't we? I suppose your stubbornness _is_ one of your more endearing qualities...” He tosses the apple again. “But perhaps our time apart has made you forget what I'm capable of. Do you need a reminder, Geralt?”

O'Dimm lifts the apple to his mouth.

Geralt remembers the apple at the wedding, how each bite racked Vlodimir with ear-splitting agony. Geralt knows O'Dimm doesn't need _apples_ to hurt people, he's not an _idiot_ — but if this is meant to be a reminder, there's little else O'Dimm could mean to remind him of.

“O'Dimm, _wait—”_

O'Dimm pauses, the apple hovering just shy of his open, smiling mouth.

Geralt finds himself with a hand outstretched in reflex, his body a livewire of tension.

When O'Dimm moves his hand again Geralt inhales sharply, but O'Dimm doesn't bite the apple, he — _rubs_ it on his stubbled face, like an extension of his hand stroking his chin in thought.

It looks absolutely ridiculous.

The pinpricks that rasp on every inch of Geralt's skin go a long way to tempering his incredulity.

“I don't know, you've been so _discourteous_ , Geralt...” O'Dimm says thoughtfully.

Impossibly, Geralt feels the warmth of O'Dimm's breath upon his skin — _under_ his skin, an unpleasant hot flash that reminds him of the blazing hearths at Kaer Morhen, where in winters past he'd sit too close to the fire to drive away the bitter chill, letting it warm him more quickly than was comfortable.

Geralt's skin crawls. If O'Dimm can visit such deep discomfort upon him with these gentle touches, it stands to reason that just a _scrape_ of his teeth would be excruciating.

O'Dimm smiles with those teeth. “Maybe if you can prove you know how to be _polite_ , I'll forego any gentle reminders.”

O'Dimm drags the apple across his lips, and it's a caress that touches Geralt everywhere at once — his sweating temple, the rapid pulse on his neck, behind his knees, his elbows, between his fingers, _everywhere_ — and it sends Geralt reeling. The whisper of pleasure is at odds with the very real and rapidly impending threat of greater pain.

“O'Dimm, wait, _please—”_

O'Dimm bites down on the apple with a sickening crunch, juices spilling down his chin.

Geralt flinches violently.

O'Dimm laughs loudly above him, and it takes Geralt a moment to realize he's not in any pain — no more than usual, at any rate. He casts a withering look at O'Dimm, but there's little heat to it. He hadn't been making _idle_ threats at Geralt's expense, after all, but legitimate ones. He’d just chosen not to act on them at the last moment, for some reason.

“I do so _love_ your reactions, Geralt!” O'Dimm crows when he's recovered from his bout of humor, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “They're practically _Pavlovian.”_

Geralt catches his breath, shuddering. “Thanks for not taking a bite out of my soul, or whatever that was,” he says. Figure if O'Dimm is holding him hostage on pain of _politeness,_ he can manage that much.

O'Dimm snorts. “It's an _apple_ , Geralt, _obviously._ I know I didn't take _your_ sight for seeking forbidden knowledge.”

“Guess you're saving that for when I've outlived my usefulness,” Geralt says, regaining his composure. He'd like to know ahead of time if the mark on his face isn't the _only_ thing O'Dimm will be taking when he's washed his hands of him. A blind witcher is as good as a dead one. Some advance notice would give him time to get his affairs together, if nothing else.

Gaunter O'Dimm makes a thoughtful sound, like he's genuinely considering the idea.

Dread finds a home in Geralt's gut. Maybe he shouldn’t be giving the man ideas.

“No,” O'Dimm eventually decides. “You may know more about me than I'm willing to allow under normal circumstances... But, you came across the information honestly, at that.”

“What does that even mean?” Geralt demands. He has to wonder what O'Dimm considers ‘honesty’, considering how brazenly he twists the truth.

“I do so _hate_ being put to pen and paper,” O'Dimm admits. “Takes away the charming human element. The embellishments, the personal touches... I much prefer word of mouth! It is, after all, the most effective form of advertising.” He smiles crookedly. “And it's much easier to keep track of who's talking about me, that way.”

Geralt crosses his arms. “Not a fan of scholars, I take it.”

“I find them _terribly_ dull. No verve for life in them — layfolk, now, they’re _much_ more interesting.”

“Told Shakeslock you were interested in _him,”_ Geralt says, remembering what the blind man said of his encounter with O'Dimm. “Interested in preventing him from telling people what he knew?”

O'Dimm shakes his head. “Interested in keeping him from being a liability, yes. But if he'd only told people, I mightn't have objected so strongly. He wanted to write a _book._ Blinding him curbed that temptation of his quite nicely.”

As Geralt remembers it, Shakeslock had still been writing even after his bout of blindness. Probably with the help of his assistant. But he hadn't written a tell-all about Gaunter O'Dimm, not that Geralt had been able to find. So he supposes it was an effective deterrent, at that.

“What'd you even bind in that circle with him?” Geralt asks suddenly, because he'd like to know what he's up against.

“Oh, just a bit of my reserves,” O'Dimm says dismissively, and Geralt isn't sure if he means mortal _souls_ he had on reserve, or reserves of his own _power_ . Or something else. “I appreciate you releasing it, by the way. It reduced the amount of time it took me to recover from our little tête-à-tête _considerably.”_

Geralt can only sigh. He should've known extinguishing those candles was a bad idea.

“But that's not what I'm here to discuss.” O'Dimm hops down from the portico with catlike grace. Geralt tenses as he makes his approach, but O'Dimm merely holds out his hand once they're standing face-to-face.

Geralt eyes it mistrustfully. “If I shake your hand, am I agreeing to something?”

“Just a truce,” O'Dimm says, “until such a time as our interests are at odds with one another.”

“I don't even know what your interests _are_ at this point,” Geralt points out, crossing his arms.

“Not very different from yours, I assure you. I'll even tell you what they are, if you shake my hand,” O'Dimm says.

Geralt considers. “You gonna finally take this mark away if I do?”

O'Dimm looks at the mark and smiles — an artist inspecting his work with pride. “Not yet.”

Geralt weighs his options. O'Dimm leaves his hand hanging in the air between them, smiling patiently.

This is a bad idea.

Geralt takes his hand.

O'Dimm shakes their joined hands once before releasing Geralt, then spreads his arms magnanimously. “Water under the bridge?”

Geralt frowns, crossing his arms again. “If I believed that for a second, I'd be swimming with bridge trolls.”

O'Dimm laughs quietly, teeth shining in the lamplight. When he subsides and meets Geralt's eyes, there's a dark glint of promise in his gaze. “Right you are.”

— 

Geralt startles when O'Dimm slaps him on the shoulder and says, “Walk with me,” and starts off on the winding cobbled paths of Corvo Bianco.

Geralt clenches his fists.

Then he sighs and follows the Man of Glass.

“So, what's your angle?” Geralt asks, unable to keep discontent from his tone. He still needs to get the wight saliva back to Regis, if they're going to finish brewing the Resonance potion.

O'Dimm sighs as if disappointed. “I did allude to _one,_ Geralt. Do try to keep up, won’t you?”

“Yeah, _one_ ,” Geralt says. “You gonna give Marlene any grief?”

“The spotted wight? She has plenty of that without any more interference from _me_.” O'Dimm says glibly. He stops at the herb garden where the earth is still barren, leaning against the white trellis. 

“Not what I asked.”

O'Dimm throws his arms up helplessly, but his smile is coy. “Come now, Geralt. What would you have me do? Promise that I won't speak to her?”

“That'd be nice,” Geralt says, but O'Dimm isn't finished.

“That I don't find her fascinating? Relax,” he says at Geralt's snarling expression. “It would be irresponsible if I lost interest in my... pet projects, whenever they got away from me. Consider Olgierd. He'd have lived for another hundred years, at least, if I hadn't asked you to step in and put an end to his fun.” Judging by the pointed look he sends Geralt's way, O'Dimm hasn't forgotten that it was the witcher who had ultimately prevented him from claiming Olgierd's soul.

Geralt tenses, uncertain.

The moment passes, and O'Dimm is all congeniality again. “Rest assured that my interest in Lady Trastamara is simply that of, how should I put this? That of a master who has passed his work on to an apprentice, and who is interested to see how the apprentice develops the work.”

Geralt rubs his forehead, tired already of O'Dimm's cryptic allusions. “I’m not your apprentice.”

“But we _have_ collaborated on this venture, in a sense,” Gaunter says. Geralt doesn't follow. “I supplied the inciting incident and, let's be honest, all the important parts... And _you_ are providing the falling action, the denouement!” Gaunter spreads his arms out, as if to an unseen audience, then takes a deep bow like the star player in a show. “Curtains, applause! Exit stage left.”

“Funny,” Geralt says, “I don't see you exiting.”

Gaunter looks up from his bow with a grin. “Just think of my presence as the occasional interjection from the narrator.”

Geralt has to snort at the laughable suggestion. “You're too much of a show-off to be satisfied as narrator.”

“It's _true_ I prefer the role of supporting character,” O'Dimm acknowledges, “but you'll be pleased to know that I plan to keep my interference in this _particular_ story to a minimum — at least, until the end. What happens then largely depends on your performance.”

“Whether or not you're satisfied with it?” Geralt asks.

“No, Geralt,” O'Dimm says as his smile vanishes. “Whether _you_ are.”

**Author's Note:**

> if i get my act together we might see more of how gaunter intends to assist geralt in... the coming travails ;) so stay tuned for that just in case! but in the meantime, I'm marking this as finished.
> 
> thanks for reading! 🥳💙💀🥄


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